Press Play
by soisforte
Summary: A collection of songfic-drabbles pertaining to the ever-awesome Prussia and the butt-kicking Hungary. Rated T for themes, etc.
1. bushes

**A/N: **Music inspires me. It inspires all of us. But I think there are a lot of songs out there that fit Prussia and Hungary in their own respective ways, and since PruHun is like, one of my top OTPs, I write drabbles for each song. Sound good? Good. But this series will probably be updated rather erratically since I only write this kind of thing when the muse hits me.

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><p><strong>"Bushes" - Hot Chelle Rae<strong>

She sat at her window, the light behind her. Waiting.

Just waiting.

Her window was cracked open half of an inch, enough that she could hear the sounds of night creaking and singing outside. The crickets whistled softly, and the wind danced through the hot night of summer. Even the stars had taken it upon themselves to grace the night sky with their brilliance. Other than that, it was silent. The silence was killing her.

She tucked a lock of wavy brown hair behind her ear and curled her knees up, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her heart pounded in her head in the excitement of what she wanted to do, what she was going to do. The darkness of nighttime seemed to call to her, the bright city lights glittering and alluring, the moon shone, as if to show the way to excitement. She glanced up at the bright silver circle in the sky, her toes clenched in anticipation. _When will he come?_

She closed her eyes, remembering. Remembering how she danced in the street lights with him, the cool night air blowing past her limbs as she spun. His red-violet eyes, dark in the shadows, glimmering with something she couldn't place, not until the softness of his mouth touched hers, spreading warmth in her limbs. The feeling of their skin sliding together, her hands in his hair, his lips on her body, how they seemed to move in harmony.

Some nights they would cruise the streets and chase after the bright city lights, her arms wrapped around his torso as she sat on the motorcycle that roared through the streets, through buildings that shone bright lights from within, little squares decorating the skyline, with the stars dancing above them. The speed of the motorcycle gave her a rush that she would not admit to anyone.

And then some nights they would go to the club, with its flashy strobe lights and expensive liquor and crowded dance floors, packed with sweaty bodies moving and jumping up and down to the music, although she wouldn't call it music. It was just the beat, the thumping bass and the rip of the deejay fiddling with the music. It was just her and him and the music, so close that he could lean down a couple inches and kiss her, so close that she could feel his heartbeat through the thin fabric of their shirts, so close that she could smell his obnoxious cologne that she always tried to get him to stop wearing.

And always, always at the end of the night, the sun would stretch out his golden rays across the sky, staining the clouds pink and purple and orange, and he would take her back to her house, and they would kiss again, their last meeting before the sun retired again behind the earth and went on to a different part of the world. And they would wait, agitated, wait for the sun to go down again and for the stars to rise again, for the moon to shine his way to her so they could be together again.

The time was here. The moon was nearly full, not quite a circle, but not anything quite less either. She shook her hair out and pressed her fingers against the window. Nervous feelings of excitement and anticipation swirled inside her, and she longed for his touch, his pale skin, his rough voice, his wild ideas and his energy. She longed for how they fit so well together, how their bodies seemed to mold into one, like they were two puzzle pieces joining together.

The bushes shifted outside, and she threw open her window to see him, grinning up at her. Her knight in vintage t-shirt and faded jeans, bleached platinum hair shining silver in the moonlight. He saluted, and her heart skipped a beat. Her head felt light with the lack of oxygen. Her feet moved on their own, but she didn't protest. They took her down the stairs and out the back and into the bushes where he stood.

And he kissed her. His warm, lean figure, his hands uncertain at first with surprise, and then moving to her hair, her jaw, her waist, and the tingles followed his touch. She felt more alive than she been all day.

"Gilbert, what are you doing?" she whispered. "We're still standing outside my house. He could see us."

"Don't worry. No one can see us," he whispered. "It's our secret."

He kissed her neck softly, a light feather tickling the spot just under her jawline. "I'll have you back before he knows it," he added.

She looked up into his eyes, green meeting crimson, and something passed between them, something that she couldn't describe with words. Passion? Understanding? Neither of them tasted right in her thoughts.

"Lizzie," he whispered. "Just trust me."

"I do."

"Then let's go," he said, grinning that smile that always got her.

And she let him take her hand and lead her into the shadows of the night.


	2. wedding dress

**Author's Note~ **aggggh so OOC Gilbert is. But I _had_ to, the song is beautiful *heart* The music video nearly made me cryyyy...

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><p>"<strong>Wedding Dress" – Taeyang<strong>

The sun is extremely annoying on this day.

It's too bright and too warm and it makes his clothing way too hot. They are uncomfortable enough without the insufferable heat to make it worse.

He tugs at his tie. He shouldn't have worn one, he thinks. It restricts his breathing, like it wants him to die. He's already half-willing to, before anything happens anyway, so why bother?

But even with the morbidity of his thoughts, he loosens his tie so that he can breathe a little easier. He is jealous of Francis, sitting next to him without a tie and simply an open shirt under his jacket. He is jealous of Arthur, who wears a tie like a noose around his neck easily. He is jealous of Antonio, who smiles happily despite sweating heavily in his jacket.

That isn't why he's truly jealous of them, though.

He is jealous because they all are smiling and happy on this occasion, an occasion where people should be smiling and should be happy. Hell, Arthur, of all people, is smiling and he is not.

He runs his fingers through his silver blond hair, short and spiky, the way he likes it. It comforts him slightly, the feel of his hair on his palms—a weird fetish, but it is what it is. He likes his hair.

"Gilbert?" Antonio's tanned face looks at him oddly, and Gilbert blinks his red eyes and throws back a half-hearted respons assuring his friend he is fine.

He's not. He really isn't.

But Gilbert Beilschmidt the awesome isn't about to admit that to anyone. It's his poker face and he is proud of it.

The noise eventually dies down, as Roderich, dressed formally with his brown hair slicked back and his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose takes his place at the head of the aisle. Feliciano stands behind him. The Italian's eyes are lit up in happiness for his friends as he holds the sturdy, leather-bound book of vows in his hands.

Even though he isn't standing up there, Gilbert can feel the adrenaline of nervousness kicking in. His vision blurrs slightly, and he feels like he might be sick. The moment is coming, he can feel it, and the very thought of it makes the world spin around him.

The music begins.

People begin walking down the aisle, and Gilbert's hands become clammy; he is dreading the moment the music ends…

He closes his eyes, and imprinted on the back of his eyelids seems to be her face, smiling up at him with her green eyes. He remembers happier times doing things as friends—though he knows in his heart that he doesn't think of her that way. He has never thought of her that way.

_The sun is bright in both their eyes, and she has rubbed extra sunblock on his pale skin so he won't burn in the harmful rays. He enjoys the feeling of her hands on his back, warm like the kiss of the sun. Her green eyes laugh at him and her brown hair shines in the sun as she throws more and more sand on his body, burying him in the beach. He protests and asks her to stop, though they both know he's joking. They both are. She doesn't really intend to leave him in there, stuck in the sand forever._

_But then _he _comes in, the brunette man with the hair and glasses and music in his step, and she leaves with him, leaving Gilbert in the sand, trapped in the sand, praying for her to look at him and smile._

_She instead looks into Roderich's purple eyes and smiles._

_It fills the cavity in his chest with lead._

A sudden elbow in the ribs from Francis sitting next to him, jerks him back to where he is, and he turns to look back over his shoulder like everyone else. He nearly forgets to breathe by doing so.

Her long brown hair is curled up in a bun, flowers in her hair and on her white skirts, petals trailing the aisle in front of her. Her skin is pale and pure and beautiful like a dove's wing, and Gilbert can feel the lead in his chest again. It weighs down in his chest and throat and stomach, and he can taste the bitterness on his tongue.

Something wet splashes on his cheek. He looks up, wondering if it has started raining, but the sky is blue as ever, and the clouds are scarce, with only the occasional wisp of white floating across the sky. The drops splashes on his face again, and Gilbert suddenly realizes that _he's crying_.

Gilbert puts a hand to his face, partly in shock, partly in anger at himself, and partly in something deeper that he can't bring himself to say, even in his head. Francis is looking at him, more incredulous than anything else. Gilbert shakes his head. _I'm fine. Everyone cries at weddings, right? Right?_

Even in thought, the words are fake. He can't stop lying to himself forever.

She is at the top of the aisle now. The music has stopped.

His throat suddenly refuses to work as he watches her look lovingly into Roderich's eyes. Their expressions make Gilbert's stomach churn horribly, still full of lead. What he wouldn't give to be standing up there, holding her fragile hands in his, to know that she was his and no one else's.

He looks up at the sky, trying to hold the tears back. _Verdammt_. _Why am I crying?_ He should be happy for them. He should. After all, Roderich is his cousin and she is his best friend.

"Do you, Elizaveta Hedervary…?"

Feliciano's words rush through his ears like air, empty of meaning. The only thing he sees now are the girl and boy standing up there, holding hands and falling in love more and more by the second.

And then his hands lift the veil off her face, and his face leans towards her, slowly, slowly.

Gilbert closes his eyes. He can't watch; it's the moment that he's prayed every day never to come, and it's suddenly here… He feels like his heart might explode with rage and anger and despair all at once…

Everyone around him begins to get up and his reddish eyes flutter open. Many from the crowd are heading for the tent off to the side—that is where the reception is being held, he reminds himself, but the thought of that is gone as quickly as it comes. He is focused instead on another thing.

He cannot pull his eyes away from the couple, they cling to each other, his hands on her waist, her hands on her dress, trying to hold the skirt and her bouquet at the same time. They laugh as she stumbles slightly, but carry on, giddy from the new happiness of marriage.

Silently, Gilbert reaches into his pocket, his fingers brushing against something warm and hard and round. He looks back at the bride and groom, still laughing in the light, the wind blowing in their faces like they're in a movie. Then Gilbert pulls out the ring in his pocket. It is beautiful, he thinks vaguely, the way it catches the light of the late afternoon sun and glimmers, its diamond inset lighting up like a star.

Yes, it is beautiful, like the salesman had said when Gilbert stood at the counter to buy it.

_But not as beautiful as she is._

He opens his hands slightly, watching it fall from between his fingers onto the grass.

He won't be needing it anymore.


	3. soldier's poem

**A/N:** World War I, I feel, is always very saddening. Sure, everyone will go on about World War II and how destructive it was and they'll be right. World War II was indeed very destructive. But I will always feel like World War I will always be the sadder, just because of the sheer uselessness of the trench warfare and the stalemate on the Western Front and Eastern Front—hell, it toppled Russia's autocratic tsarist government and installed Communism in its place. (/history geek)

But … you know what, I really don't know. World War I somehow speaks to me more than its antecedant, and so with that, I present you "Soldier's Poem," inspired by the Muse song of the same name.

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><p><strong>Soldier's Poem – Muse<strong>

She remembered very clearly the day they wheeled him in the stretcher.

The year was 1916. It had been over two years since the Great War had started. She was working as a nurse in the war hospitals.

And then they brought him in.

He was nested in a bed of white sheets, his uniform splattered in dark splotches of red.

Red blood.

Blood staining his sheets and whatever bandages were wrapped around him, blood staining his dark uniform, blood staining his skin in ugly brownish crusts.

But the rest of him was very pale like the sheets in which he lay, from his thin, bony face to his cropped short hair so pale that it didn't seem natural. It was like mercury, The soldier's uniform he wore clung to him like mere skin on a frame, and the delicate curve of his lashes rested over his cheeks.

Even then, to her, a simple girl from Hungary who liberated herself from the confines of her simple village to see the world, he was beautiful. She had not seen something—some_one_—as he was in her short month and a half at the German war hospital. Working here as a nurse, she had seen too many things that she ought not to. The spoils of war were not something proper women were allowed to dwell upon.

But here… the pale broken form of his body reminded her vaguely of a corpse, of a beautiful prince doomed to die in a fairy tale, exquisite in the white, deathly slumber. He was beyond human.

And she?

She was just a girl.

xx

She had to work up her courage to talk to him.

It shouldn't have been hard. She only had to force her legs to move to his bed, and then open her mouth and say _Guten Tag._

Easy. On paper.

But when she tried, she would see his violet eyes, tinted red like he was some kind of vampire or a supernatural creature. He was untouchable to her, divine, even. Her heartbeat grew faster whenever she even walked by his bed to check on him, and then she would have to place her stethoscope on his chest to check his heartbeat, and rebandage the wound in his stomach and feel his face for any fever… it wasn't supposed to be sexual in any way, but her palms always grew hot and slippery when her fingers brushed his pale skin. She fumbled with her equpiment too many times when she was near him. It was ridiculous. She knew it.

That was the first thing he said to her.

"You know," his low voice murmured. "You're quite ridiculous."

She blinked, surprised, at him and couldn't speak for a moment. She didn't know what to say.

"I-I'm sorry," she managed, feeling very flustered.

The smile she got in response most beautiful, most heartwrenching smile she had ever seen.

xx

She often went back to talk to him after that day. They spoke German, but often he would use words that she didn't know, and he would have to go to long-winded explanations of what he was trying to say. Some days he would quote German literature that they both knew, and other days he would quote the Roman classics of Vergil and Horace and others that she knew not the names of. He talked of history and science and life and philosophy and everything that she could possibly imagine.

She learned that he was from Berlin, growing up in the city streets as a simple school boy with a little brother named Ludwig. He was proud to be Prussian, proud to be fighting for his country, proud to be a soldier. But above all, he was proud to be an older brother.

He talked about Ludwig constantly—how he wore lederhosen and didn't drink beer until he was older and how he was much too serious and how he never loosened up. He told stories of how they grew up in the streets of Berlin to a happy, if not too poor, family. They would rise every day with the sun and play soccer with the boys in the streets—Ludwig was always the goalie, he would add—and go to school and go to the country and swim in the creek and care for his pet chick that he found wounded in the streets one day as a boy.

Even when he wasn't talking, she learned much about him. She learned how he murmured the names of his mother and father and brother in his sleep, how he softened when he dreamed of his childhood, how he looked off into the window of the hospital with a thoughtful look on his face, how when he smiled one corner of his mouth would rise up a little higher than the other. She found himself lost in him, throwing all her other cares away in his violet eyes…

"There's no one to blame for this anymore," he whispered one day. "I would lay my life down for you."

She didn't know where it came from. She didn't care.

That was the first day she held his hand, his long fingers wrapped in her palms.

She would have held it forever.

xx

She was in love with him.

She had set out from Hungary, looking for freedom, looking to help with the war effort.

She hadn't found it. The life of a war nurse was tiring, tedious, and she didn't want this life.

Only _he _made it better, the wounded, platinum-haired soldier from Prussia with a soul of stories.

Only _he_ brightened this war.

xx

"All of it, the guns, the machines, the gas, it's wrong," he said one day, eyes on the ceiling. "It's all wrong."

She only sat there, holding his thin fragile hand in hers. It was so pale and lifeless that she wanted to cry. He didn't seem to notice it, resting on the white sheets and pillows, but he was growing weaker every day, and his voice seemed to get softer every time she talked to him, like his vocal cords were slowly giving out.

"Tell me," he continued. "What justice is in this? The killing, the destruction. What is this for?"

"I… don't know," she faltered.

"Then," he said, turning his eyes onto hers, "what are you doing here?"

"To be free," she said, and immediately regretted it; she had never admitted that thought to anyone, let alone someone she hardly knew—_but she loved him._

"Do you think you deserve it?" he asked her. "Your freedom, that is?"

She was taken aback. She didn't know.

He sighed slightly, and turned his gaze back on the ceiling. "It's a shame, really… we're all dying anyway…"

"No!" she insisted. "No, you're not, you'll—you'll get better and then you'll be fine—"

"The world doesn't work like that, _Prinzessin,_" he said, and she blinked at him in surprise. Had he just called her a princess?

"I won't be around for much longer. We both know that," he said.

It was true. The life seemed to be leaving him with every breath he took, escaping with the air in his lungs. She clung to his hand a mere fraction tighter, for fear that his hand would crack under her grip and that he would be gone…

"No," she whispered thickly. "Don't leave me, please, I _need_ you…"

"There's no justice in the world," he said softly, with an edge of sadness, lifting his other hand to cover hers. "There never was."

xx

The next morning he was not there.

His bed was empty.

Her feet took her quickly to where the other nurses stood, preparing bandages and other odd medical things like that. She almost didn't care what they were doing anymore.

"Where is he?" she begged the other nurses. Her voice broke slightly, and she willed herself not to cry; she nearly knew the answer, but she didn't want to hear it, she didn't ever want to hear it…

"He's passed away, love," said one of them. "Gone."

It sounded so simple, put like that. _Passed away. _Like he had to go on to another place, like heaven with eternal sun and eternal games of soccer and feast. Like he'd just gotten out of bed and walked there, in his atrocious condition.

She would never reach that place. Not without him. All that she knew in that moment was that the sun was gone, the only things that covered the sky were grief and despair and love and pain. Dear God, she loved him. She loved him so much but he was gone and he wasn't coming back.

He was gone. He was _dead_.

The man with hair like silver and eyes like garnets and smile like the sun would never talk to her in that raspy voice, never laugh obnoxiously again, never allow her to hold his hand, never look at her again with those eyes. He would never get better and they would never have run away to Switzerland, like they'd wanted to and they would never have gotten married and had kids and died together. God, how she wanted him back so badly. She wanted to reach out and take his hand and pull him back to her like she was taking candy from off a store shelf to make it hers… She wanted it back so much. Her chest throbbed at the idea.

She hadn't known that she'd started crying until someone gave her a handkerchief, which she covered her face with.

"There, there," they murmured soothingly, rubbing her shaking shoulders.

"He's… _gone_," she said. "_Gone._"

"No, wait," said one of them—the one who had said he was gone. The simple girl from Hungary looked up, tears streaming from her green eyes down her face.

"He left something in his hand," said the first nurse. "A piece of paper with your name on it."

"What… what did it say?" she asked, trembling with anticipation.

"_Ich liebe dich._"

Her heart expanded with the words, loaded with a meaning that none of the nurses understood. The pain was gone and yet at the same time all the more intense, but her heart beat with new resolve. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, the words echoing in his familiar scratchy voice again and again in her mind, cherishing them, holding them near forever.

_Ich liebe dich._

_Ich liebe dich auch._

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><p><em>Prinzessin = <em>princess  
><em>Ich liebe dich = <em>I love you  
><em>Ich liebe dich auch <em>= I love you too

**Extra A/N**: Btw, I am _**always**_ happy to take song requests, so if you guys are tired of reading depressing PruHun angst/drama/whatever, then feel free to review and give me a song :) It'll be in the chapter after next, since I really want to do a Franz Ferdinand song next—asdf I am OBSESSED with them.

But yeah. _**SONG REQUESTS, PLEASE! :D FOR SAKE OF KEEPING THIS THING UP!**_


	4. about a girl

_Dedicated to the person who will never read this. I miss you more with every day that passes._

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><p>"<strong>About a Girl" – The Academy Is…<strong>

He was always waiting.

_dear elizaveta_

He would wait. And while he waited, he would watch her and her long brown hair that danced in the light, her smile as bright as the sun, her green eyes the color of two blades of grass on a summer afternoon, dancing in the wind.

_i can never breathe_

Every day he sat in the same spot in the café with his friends Antonio and Francis. She would always walk in, and he would feel a desperate hope inside him, a hope that she would turn towards their table, noticing him the way he always seemed to notice her. Hoping that she would walk over and scratch the surface.

_around you, you're just_

But she never did. She was always with _him_, and _he_ was the bane of his existence. _He_ had brown hair and heart-shaped face and glasses and mole and dignified manner. Like he was better than everyone. The guy never smiled—he didn't need to. He got the message across just fine. She outshined him by far. She didn't need him.

_too beautiful, i can't_

He wished desperately that she would open her eyes and _see _him, _really _see him, and not just glance over him like he was part of the wall. He was someone to be noticed. He was right there. Why couldn't she see? Why couldn't she see him like he saw her? He was a goddamn person and he wanted to be noticed!

_help but notice how_

No one knew about it, the desperation inside of him. He dismissed it, rejected it inside of himself even as it bubbled up when she walked by. He wouldn't dare tell anyone for fear of what would happen—_Gott,_ what would he do? No, he wasn't in _love_ with her. No, that was a ridiculous idea. She couldn't possibly notice someone like him, let alone _love. _He was awkward, and pale, and ugly, and obvious, and desperate. Who the hell would like anyone like him? Hair bleached bone white, long skinny limbs, eyes like a vampire's—red-violet. _Gott, _no one would ever like anyone like that.

_you smile like sunshine_

He was definitely not in love with her, he reasoned. He shouldn't waste his daydreams on her. He should stop imagining them holding hands and walking down the hallway together. He should stop imagining them sending useless texts to each other. He should stop imagining them lying together in the grass at night, side-by-side, looking at the stars. He should keep his fantasies out of even the slightest notion of them watching a movie together and falling asleep to it. Definitely nowhere near a dinner together at some expensive restaurant. Not even close to going on and kissing at the top of the Ferris wheel.

_you know i just_

He needed to put the thought of holding that thin, delicate, cream-colored hand in his own out of his head. He needed to forget how her green eyes shone when she smiled, how they twinkled when she laughed, how they would look into his reddish ones with a comfort that he'd never known and so desperately wanted. He needed to forget the softness of her hair as it shone in the sun, the light, feathery feel of it under his hands as he brought her face up to hers and kissed her, kissed her cheeks and forehead and chin and those pink, pink lips that he would never stop kissing…

_want to be loved_

The words always came to him at night, as he lay in bed and waited for sleep to take him away. He would know what to say to her then, the perfect lines he would rehearse to himself for hours, as he curled up around the empty spot in his chest that he'd set aside… a nagging feeling told him that it was for _her_, that spot that she would fill when they would be together, but he pushed it away. Even then he would say the words to himself, and he wouldn't ever be tongue-tied or overloaded with emotion or idiotic as Antonio was around tomatoes. But she would never be there to hear them.

_what more can i ask?_

He wasn't in love, he told himself firmly. He wouldn't write a song for her, he wouldn't act like an idiot, he wouldn't constantly ask about her, he wouldn't dream in brown hair and green eyes and warm skin and emotions that filled him up and ate away at him at the same time. He wasn't in love, he wasn't going to waste these sentimental, silly words about her, he wasn't going to think about any of it.

_i'm standing right here_

It wasn't his heart she'd taken. It wasn't. It wasn't his heart that pounded in his ears when she walked by. It wsn't his heart that jumped at every mention of her name. It wasn't his heart that skipped a beat when she smiled. It wasn't his heart that beat for her. No, it was someone else's heart. Someone else's heart believed in her as fully as that heart that was in his chest.

_so look at me_

The song he wrote was not for her. It was about a girl. Just a girl. Not for her. It would never be about her, he'd never waste his time writing an _entire freaking song _about her. He'd never waste something that precious on someone like her, someone who had already found someone to love, albeit a person with nothing notable about him. She was someone who was always passing by him, someone who never listened to him, someone who never saw him for who he was.

_i'm in love with you_

He didn't want her. He didn't want to fill his heart with her, didn't need to see her, to hear her voice, to hear her laugh, to touch her, to cup her cheek in his hands, to press his lips to her own, to hold her in his arms and never let go. To fill the empty space in his chest that so desperately wanted it. He didn't want any of that. None of it. He wouldn't have it. He wouldn't have her.

_so love me back_

It wasn't worth it. Everyone wanted to be loved. What was the big deal? He didn't need it. He would gladly throw it all away. All of it. The song he'd written and poured his heart into, the letters he'd printed so carefully on sheets of paper, the flowers he'd let die in the vase, the pictures he'd painstakingly drawn, none of it was significant. He'd gladly throw it away. So gladly. He didn't need them. He didn't need them.

_please_

And yet when he made to throw all of it away, his hands refused to move. His fingers remained clutching all of it, all the reminders of her, all the reminders of his love for her. His heart contracted around the feelings, and he ground his teeth. _Gott, _what was _wrong_ with him? It shouldn't have been this hard! He could feel the tickling in the back of his eyes as the tears threatened to slip over and fall down his face. He didn't love her, so what was the matter?

_love,_

He was lying. He could taste it in his mouth, even unspoken. He could taste the lies.

_gilbert._

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><p><strong>AN:** I'm sorry, I know I said I would do a Franz Ferdinand song next, but this song played on Pandora and it spoke to me, all right?

Next one will be the Franz Ferdinand and then I'll get to the requests, I promise! Over and out ~


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